Comments on: Unsure of things here at the beach

By: Elsa

Elsa — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:02:13 +0000

I had this problem before because the shower just emptied into the septic and would stir it up and send the smell back. Hubby said it was the lack of the traps. We would fill a ziplock bag with water and stick it over the drain to block off the smell when not in use. We also flush yeast mixed with warm water down the toilets once a month.

Love your blog, too bad ya’ll are heading back. I lived in Atenas for my first stint in Rica and loved it. We now live in Esterillos and it’s true about the manana attitude. Why work if you can go to the beach? It’s hard to argue with that, although it sucks to be on the other end…
Pura vida!

By: John

John — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:36:23 +0000

Another, very likely, issue is the septic system as a whole. My guess is that whatever it is, the septic is overloaded. When we got our house the septic was full and the owner had run a drain pipe to the creek. We could smell it, but needed to find where it was coming out inorder to get the previous owner to pay for it. The smell might vary based on what you’re doing (flooding with bath water), but also by the weather. Maybe a heavy rain, dry wind, etc could affect it. That shower drain also might simply dump out to a drywell of some sort with no trap. Possibilities are endless and they all suck for you with no easy solution.

By: Trish

Trish — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:28:27 +0000

Hey john – you are right, in a way. There are only 3 drains – 2 sinks and a shower. The sink drains seem not to have traps, very weird indeed. But the smell doesn’t come from the sinks. It comes from the shower drain. Can’t tell if there is a trap there, and if there isn’t, there isn’t anything I can really do. It’s a cement block house, and that drain would be sunk in concrete. What I suspect is really the problem is that the venting system is flawed. Or not. who knows. If you saw what amounts to plumbing in Costa Rica, there would be no end to your laughing. I’ll have to post a separate post about this. Regardless, we can’t get out of here quick enough.

Strangely, yesterday there was no smell. Why would it vary day-to-day? Bizarre.

By: John

John — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:07:48 +0000

Guys – Do the drain lines have traps (the loop in pipe that goes down and back up)? The trap is meant to hold water which will act as a smell barrier. If there’s no traps, you definitely have big issues. One thing to do is make sure you have poured some water into each drain. We have a sink we never use in the basement and every so often I need to pour some water in to stop the smell from coming out. Also heard that pouring a little oil in prevents the trap water from evaporating too fast.

By: Arp

Arp — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:47:32 +0000

We at least got the toilet & stove fixed. The smell is better when the window’s open The beach, otoh, is absolutely gorgeous. We’ve been twice and are reminded nicely why we are here. We came up with an idea to declutter our place – use 1 room just for storage so the rest of the space is livable and uncluttered. Good thing that the lease is for 3 months, so if we find something worthwhile, we can move at the end of February.

We haven’t had a chance to meet anyone yet, but I’ll talk to one of the homeschooling parents at the feria this weekend. I’ve also had an email from someone local that we’ll prolly meet this weekend as well.